My brother and i rake our trail's to our deer stands. Anybody else do this? I've got some very nice buck's doing this. It's so much easier to sneak in and sneak out. Every year i do it tho i get parinoid i'm spooking them when we're out there raking. Do you think they just "run off" and come back later? or freak out and vacate the area? we only hunt on 40 acres.
I haven't "raked" a path but the path I use to my primary stand, after years of trimming etc... deer actually have taken it over. LOL.....
I would probably rake in a path to my stands but I share the land with others. AND I don't want them knowing my spots.
no need for me to do this because my route in is an old logging road and the path is pretty well defined.
I've thought about it, but decided that raking would cause much more of a disturbance than taking my time walking in. Like others, I've trimmed trails, but I try to keep it to a minimum.
I don't completely rake a trail from truck to stand. Now I have raked a little 1 foot wide path from the grass to my tree (20 yards) under some old Oak trees because the leaves and acorns would pop under each step. That's about as far as I'll go.
I dont rake trails into my stand. I try to spend that kind of time scouting areas and finding the deer. Like Fitz said, just take your time walking in and go slow. Some leafs crunching here and there in the woods doesn't spook game unless you happen to be right next to them. Just listen to squirrels and other critters navigating through the woods. They make noise with the leafs just like you would walking in slowly. The animals won't think anything of it, assuming the wind is right.
I have logging trails through a hardwoods ridge that I use to access my stands, right after the leaves fall (probably this weekend) I run a tractor with a spring tooth drag and it takes care of most of the leaves. Now I have a silent approach through most of the woods, but I don't rake the trails off the logging roads to my stands because I hunt with a climber and seldom use the same tree.
I generally use a weedeater to clear paths to my stands and to open travel lanes in the areas of stands. The areas that I hunt are very thick and nasty with under brush so if I don't clear paths they are quickly swallowed up by new growth. I go out once in late June and then again in early September. While I'm out there I pick up downed limbs or other things that might make noise when stepping on them. The deer actually take over the paths, as my trail cams have shown. In fact last night I shot two does that were making their way to the trail that I trimmed out for walking into the stand.
I've never raked, but I have taken a weedeater and spray round up with brush killer to and my stands and several trails for deer to take to feeders. It has worked. It does work!
about ten years ago we took out ye old Farmall H with a brush hog on it and made fourwheeler trails to start with, every couple years we had to clear them up again. its extremely thick in my woods, and new growth pops up very rapidly. this past spring i jerry-rigged a sprayer to the fourwheeler and opened up some narrow trails by spraying round up. Deer took them over, afterall 9 times out of 10 deer will take the path of least resistance
I dont rake but I do move brush if its in my path well before the season. I have had Deer take over pathes that I have pruned before!
I don't actually rake my trails. The trails I use to hunt are the same trails I use to set my trail cams. Every time I use the trail I'll clear any small twigs/branches from it with my walking stick. I don't use a flashlight, so I keep my trails clear. You can snap a twig/branch and a deer will wonder what that is, but when a deer see's a light he KNOWS what that is!
The elk do a great job out here of creating almost cattle like trails.. pretty sweet for sneaking in and out.. I kick a lot of debris off of trails at about 100 yards and in ... approaching my stands..
I rake the last 10 yards to my stand under a big Oak, other than that I use roads or the creek if it isn't to deep
